


I don't know if I'm closer to Heaven but it looks like Hell down there (welcome to the loneliest city in the world)

by flowers4flowers



Category: Anna Karenina (2012), Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: F/M, I'm really tired of fictional women being punished, no beta readers we self-edit like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 06:56:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19057519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowers4flowers/pseuds/flowers4flowers
Summary: He corners her in his study, pinning her in place with his insufferable civility.“I must warn you about something.” It angers her that he does not meet her eye, that he speaks to their floor like looking at her will cause him even more shame. “Your behavior, whether it be incidental or not, will inevitably lead to talk that will bring humiliation upon our marriage.” He draws in a shaky breath, still avoiding her eye as he looks for more words to chide her with.She will not stand for it.“I am tired, and you are being evasive. Speak plainly if you must speak at all, or else I will end this conversation and go to bed.”His head shoots up at her words, his eyes cutting into her as he sees that her threat is true. There’s anger there, and she thinks, resentment. It’s thrilling in the most perverse way.





	1. Unavoidable

**Author's Note:**

> you ever just *clenches fist* hate a book so much you rewrite canon?

He corners her in his study, pinning her in place with his insufferable civility.

“I must warn you about something.” It angers her that he does not meet her eye, that he speaks to their floor like looking at her will cause him even more shame. “Your behavior, whether it be incidental or not, will inevitably lead to talk that will bring humiliation upon our marriage.” He draws in a shaky breath, still avoiding her eye as he looks for more words to chide her with.

She will not stand for it.

“I am tired, and you are being evasive. Speak plainly if you must speak at all, or else I will end this conversation and go to bed.”

His head shoots up at her words, his eyes cutting into her as he sees that her threat is true. There’s anger there, and she thinks resentment. It’s thrilling in the most perverse way.

 _Good. At least I can raise some emotion in him._ She jauntily tilts her head, widening her eyes in that innocent way she knows grates on him. He despises the ladies who partake in this behavior, coquettishness masking a lack of ethics and care. She does this knowing he will grow only more irritated, hoping against hope that they will finally have a conversation stripped bare of pretense.

They have been married for nearly a decade, she deserves to know his true feelings in the manner.

“You always hate it when I don’t talk to people, and you always hate it when I do. I am not a child, tell me what has caused this conversation to take place.” When he says nothing she takes several steps forward, enjoying the way she makes his head crane backward to look her in the eye.

When he looks down again she angrily turns, intending to exit the room as swiftly as possible.

“I consider jealousy to be degrading to you, and beneath me. But nevertheless, I feel it.” She turns to see him once again looking at her, a weariness now having entered his expression. “There. That is my truth.” He stands and makes his way towards her. She holds firm. “Are you happy to hear me say that? That you have driven your husband to the very basest of sentiments?”

“I only ever wanted you to feel something over than duty towards me.” The admission shocks them both, as they both visibly recoil from what she has just said. She draws in a breath and presses on, the dam bursting and everything spilling out. “I never asked for anything other than what I know I deserve, as your wife, as the woman who shares your bed. I want you to look at me, truly, and see a woman you actually enjoy spending time with.”

She picks at her dress, wanting to fly across the room at him, but holding herself back for her own sake. “This will anger you, and for that I am glad. This is what you have brought upon yourself for finding my emotions to be degrading, to view our son as the image of you without allowing him any of the tenderness he needs. For treating our bed as merely a part of a contract.”

She cuts herself off to take in a deep breath, bracing herself for what she is about to unleash in her house. “For never treating me with the one thing I only ever asked from you-tenderness.”

He stiffens his back, preparing for the blow. “Tell me.”

The smile she gives him is without warmth, created by a bitterness that has been festering for years.

“Vronsky has asked me to be his lover. I plan on accepting his proposal." This is not true, but she says it because she knows it will hurt him. 

He says nothing, letting the wind whistling through an open window be the only sound that permeates the room. The shock is evident, his fear, about what she’s not sure, shining in his eyes.

Karenin makes no move to touch her, to reach out and touch the wife who is so close to slipping from him. 

She can’t bear it. 

Her back is to him when he finally speaks, but she only gifts him the glimpse of her profile. She will not have him see her cry. She will not let him see how their marriage devastates her.

“What do I have to do to make you love me again? If, indeed, you ever have?”

Her silence is deafening, the hall echoing only the sound of their ragged breaths.

“If you truly loved me, husband, you would already know.” With a cutting swish of her dress, Anna fully turns and storms off to her room.

Karenin makes to reach out for her, but the only thing left for him to grasp is the current of air she has twirled up, and the scent of her perfume. It is not one he bought for her.

Distantly he hears her door close, and Alexei Karenin is left alone with the crumbling foundation of his marriage the only thing keeping him from collapsing in on himself.


	2. Chapter 2

Anna spends the night crying into her pillow, simultaneously hoping and dreading a knock upon her door. At some point a tentative knock does sound, but when she rushes to the door she finds only her timid maid. Struggling to hide her disappoint, and ultimely failing, she dismisses the poor girl to bed, determined to rid herself of the damned gown on her own. She hears tears and finds nothing within her cares in the slightest.

_He touched me in this dress. He saw me in this dress._ The thrill she expects to feel does not come, only disgust-at herself, at him. She throws the dress across the room when it finally comes off, determined to not think of him or this evening again.

But sleep does not come, only the tossing and turning in her sheets as she thinks about the husband she has stormed away from.

When she hears the great clock in the foyer strike five she rises, rubbing her sleepless eyes as she maneuvers her way through her room in the dark. She can’t help but remember how, whenever her husband infrequently spent the night in her bed, he would light a candle for her when he inevitably rose before her.

_He cares._ She muses. _Only in the smallest of gestures._

It is too early to call in her maid to help her dress, so she haphazardly throws a light shawl over her nightshift before leaving her room. She does not know where to go, the house itself only serving as a reminder of her and Karenin’s lifeless and empty marriage. She feels trapped within these walls, and half entertains the thought of fleeing into the early morning sun. 

She passes by a window that has been left open, and quickly disregards the thought. It is far too cold outside, but the cold does serve a purpose. It gives her an idea of where to go, and she sets off towards the staircase that leads to that area of the house.

The library, at all hours, has a fire going in the fireplace. Even at this hour, long after her husband’s gone to bed, there should still be embers there that she can stir into some warmth. 

The room is seemingly empty when she enters, and she gratefully sinks into one of the large chairs that ring the fireplace. She picks up the poker laying in front of the logs, and pushes them around to get the embers sparking. When the fire arrives at a warmth that is to her liking she puts the poker down and settles in to wait for the sun.

-

Alexei Karenin has not slept well, if at all, since his wife told him of her desire to take a lover. Anger has fueled the majority of his waking hours since, pacing his study as though he would find answers in the relentless back and forth.

But none come, only despair that his marriage is falling apart before his very eyes.

_“I only ever wanted you to feel something over than duty towards me. I never asked for anything other than what I know I deserve, as your wife, as the woman who shares your bed. I want you to look at me, truly, and see a woman you actually enjoy spending time with.”_

He closes his eyes in an attempt to shut out the image of her, eyes burning and cheeks flushed. How she had held him in a captured state, both in awe of her fury, and terrified of it.

His anger dies as the clock ticks away the midnight hours, as he ruminates more and more on their conversation. He knows he is old, yes, and that the passion she longs for is something he struggles to bring. He knows his shortcomings in full, but apparently she has found more with him.

_“For never treating me with the one thing I only ever asked from you-tenderness.”_

If she seeks to divorce him, Karenin knows he cannot keep her from following through with it. He’s not that strong, not when it comes to her.

When the clock strikes six he shakes off the stupor that has kept him standing and pacing for hours. He cannot go to bed, sleep a laughable idea at this point. He exits his study for the one place in the house he feels most comfortable in, save the garden he had carefully cultivated for Anna.

He expects to find the library empty, as it should be at this hour. He does not expect to see someone sleeping in his preferred chair. Does not expect that person to be his wife.

The dim light from the fire emphasizes the hollowness of her face, something Karenin does not remember from before. _You old fool, of course she’s been wasting away in this marriage._ He chides himself for not noticing, for not seeing her as she was. A young woman trapped in a marriage to an older man who, though as in love with her as he allowed himself, did not touch her with the reverance she deserved.

His wife is beautiful, so kind and intelligent, and he has been treating her as little more than a live-in companion. The shame burns deep.

He comes back to himself when he sees a shiver run through her body, the fire having died down to little more than embers. He considers raising it again, and leaving her to her rest, but quickly dismisses the notion. Too long has he held himself back from treating his wife with tenderness, afraid of the urges such action raises in him.

_I am not a coward. I cannot be one to her._

His instincts are screaming at him, almost locking his limbs in place as Karenin goes to shirk the propriety that has driven his life. But for once Karenin will not hold himself back-he reaches out, and picks up his wife.

Cradling her in his arms he makes to the open door, and as smoothly as he can, begins to walk towards her room. He walks slowly so as to not jolt her, minutely adjusting his grip as Anna settles into the unfamilar resting place.

Her head nuzzles further into his neck as they walk past an open window, and it’s like a bolt of lightning shoots through his blood.

-

She wakes to find herself in motion, the hallway moving past her vision at an all too familiar clip. The cologne she can barely detect confirms it. Her husband is carrying her. It’s unfamiliar and terrifying, the tenderness with which he holds her.

Anna’s heart sings at the contact.

-

It is a testament to how much his wife overwhelms his senses, for when Karenin goes to deposit Anna on her bed he finds her eyes gazing up at him. He makes to let her go, but she tightens a hand around his arm.

“Stay.” Her voice quietly pleads, knowing that if he leaves her now there is no going back. She had laid her heart before him, and he still had touched her with a care she thought alien to him. She knows there is life here yet, buried deep though it is by years of monotony and convention.

“Hold me.”

He surprises her when he acquiesces, laying down beside her on top of the covers. She had hoped he would, but had resigned herself to watching him exit the room. His gentle smile to her now cracks her heart for all the love and tenderness it holds.

He raises an arm to wrap around her shoulders, and she responds two-fold by pressing herself against his side. Even in the earliest days of their marriage they had not lied like this, and she can feel in the rigidity of his posture the fact that he does not know what to do.

“We’ll talk later.” There are still many things she needs to say, lies she needs to admit to. The name Vronsky haunts the space between them, her supposed feelings towards him keeping her husband at a distance. _Sometimes the greatest distance is that which exists between two people_ , she muses, and tightens her grip on Alexei. She resolves herself to trying to make this work.

She feels him hum in acknowledgment.

“Our son will rise soon.” Her heart soars when he says this, this implicit sign of their joining. “I was thinking that today would be a good day to go to the park-would you like that?”

“No lessons?”

She cannot see it, but she can feel his smile. “No, no lessons for today. I would like to spend time with our son.”

“He would like that.”

Again, that hum of his that tingles against her skin. She listens to the sound of his breathing, the smoothness of it that gently coaxes her back under. But not before she can make an observation about the unusual situation they find themselves in.

“We’ll surely scandalize my maid when she comes in.”

Alexei laughs deeply, and Anna drifts off with a smile on her face.

\--

Anna knows it is too early to say that their marriage is saved, that passion has entered the domestic space. But when she ventures out into the garden two weeks after that fateful night, and spots her husband playing with their son, she finds herself hopeful for the future.

Alexei turns and smiles at her, shielding his eyes from the blinding sun.

Anna raises a hand in greeting, and makes her way forward into the bright afternoon.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> comments are, as always, appreciated though never required :)


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